Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera is making a name for himself in the UFC world for sure, especially with a record of 23-9-1. The bantamweight fighter is from California and ‘Chito’ is ranked 4 right now in the bantamweight category. The fighter even has 8 wins via KO/TKO, so it is evident that he has a good record. However, every fighter has some setbacks and losses, but Chito never backs down.

Let’s see some of his losses and see how he is improving for his next match.

Sean O’Malley, Cory Sandhagen, Jose Aldo: Marlon Vera’s losses against top bantamweights

The UFC bantamweight contender will start his second title shot pursuit this weekend, and he has a fresh strategy in place. He changed his approach because of the losses he faced against many veteran fighters like Sean O’Malley, Cory Sandhagen, and Jose Aldo. The Ecuadorian star had his first shot at gold but it was unsuccessful at UFC 299 in Miami in March. He unfortunately could not repeat that victory against Sean O’Malley and had a decision defeat in the bout.

He has KO-ed Dominik Cruz in the past with a low-volume approach, but this did not help him against other fighters. He however, is aware of his flaws and even mentioned them recently in an interview with Michael Bisping and light heavyweight contender Anthony Smith. He noted the problems in his fighting style and acknowledged them while also describing how he changed his strategy.

Unfortunately, he lost to Cory Sandhagen in March 2023 and his opponent was not very kind about it. He criticized Vera’s performance with ‘Suga’. Despite being ranked lower than most fighters in the past, he was still offered the fight with O’Malley, which might have made Sandhagen lash out. Vera had previously defeated Sugar in a first-round KO in 2020. However, the second time he could not. He lost to Jose Aldo in 2020 as well during the UFC Fight Night in December.

This time he is fighting Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC on ABC: Sandhagen vs. Nurmagomedov and he has a new strategy up his sleeve. Chito said, “Some adjustments on the conditioning and getting my feet a bit more mobile. I’ve been feeling great. What I think was like, okay, I have great grappling but I’m not the fighter that wants to take you down and hold you down. For this time, we did a lot of grappling so I could get back kind of to my roots. But I also want to like, put all my numbers together instead of just looking for power.”

His fighting style is very diverse, but primarily consists of a combination of punches, wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is a BJJ black belt so his strongest suit is this style of fighting. He remains at a distance from his opponents and throws kicks and jabs to defeat his opponents. His left jab is his secret ingredient because he has achieved victory over 8 opponents thus far with it. On that note, let’s take a look at some of his massive achievements and overall MMA record.

Marlon Vera’s overall MMA record 

According to UFC stats, his record is 23-9-1 as of now and the 135lbs fighter has won fights against several veterans like Rob Font, Frankie Edgar, Sean O’Malley, and Davey Grant. The 31-year-old has won 5 fights via decision and 10 of them by submission. According to the statistics, his dominant submission technique is Triangle Choke. He has had one draw in his career till now and uses a switch stance while fighting.

The Equatorial has competed in numerous other promotions like UCC and Inca FC. The fighter with a net worth of $4 million was born into a middle-class family and also has an older sister and brother. When he was young, he used to get into street fights and then he started training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at 16. He started his professional career in 2010 and is primarily a grappler with most of his wins coming out through a knockout or submission. He has had 9 losses in MMA so far and one fight was a draw. 

His first loss came against Bruno Leandro Lobato at Inka FC 23 on August 24, 2013, and the second loss was in his UFC debut against Marco Beltran at UFC 180. Vera is coming back in full swing and now even has a new strategy for his sleep, so we might see some new fighting moves on the octagon.